Philosophy Now Forum

Lacewing wrote:

The Inglorious One wrote: Not much of a challenge for some theists.

In what way do you mean? I think theists are certainly challenged to realize/acknowledge the limits they place on their god. Which might be why I would say something like: "Isn't your god ALL of it (or the entire universe)?" Isn't it true that most theists tend to define separations between what their god is and is not? And isn't that a contradiction?

"Most" does not mean all. It is therefore unfair, I think, to put all theists in the same basket.

All of the theistic traditions have "mystical" traditions embedded in them. This is often overlooked by critics of theism. For some theists (I won't say "most" because that may not be true), the word “God” does not designate an objectified or objectifiable “other” (like fairies or flying-spaghetti-monsters), an object alongside other objects, but rather is used to signify an ontological distinction between the Ground of Being and things that have being. It's a way of allowing a theist to say God is all things while maintaining a distinction between God, the Ground of Being, and the material universe.

This ontological distinction is, perhaps, the only difference between what you appear to be saying and the variety if theism I'm talking about.

Hobbes' Choice wrote:

Lacewing wrote: It does not make sense to me that there would be any entity that would be SEPARATE from all that is. I think "separation" is a human concept. We humans seem oblivious to the connectivity of ALL -- and oblivious to the scope that is beyond the limitations of our perception of forms and boundaries. Therefore, within the boundaries of our own limits, we create gods who are identified as having human characteristics and being separate. It's all WE know.

I take it, you either own this, or are now calling yourself an Atheist?

The issue here is that you are misunderstanding it -- NOT that I have something I'm not owning.

Theists have defined a god entity... yes? And they (commonly) have defined all kinds of separations associated with that god, yes? According to theists, some things are of their god, and some things are not... correct? THAT doesn't make sense to me... when they say that their god created (and is) ALL of it. That doesn't mean that I believe "all that is" IS A GOD. I do NOT! Rather, I think that "all that is" is WAY BEYOND the puny human notion of gods.

Now, if you respond to me in a way that shows you still can't fathom what I've been saying -- without your distortion clamped onto it -- then I'm going to guess that there's no value in discussing it further with you, and that you are addicted to making accusations which are simply born of a narrow perspective and lack of understanding.

The Inglorious One wrote: "Most" does not mean all. It is therefore unfair, I think, to put all theists in the same basket.

Yes, of course... and I am careful to pay attention to my thoughts.

The Inglorious One wrote:For some theists (I won't say "most" because that may not be true), the word “God” does not designate an objectified or objectifiable “other” (like fairies or flying-spaghetti-monsters), an object alongside other objects, but rather is used to signify an ontological distinction between the Ground of Being and things that have being. It's a way of allowing a theist to say God is all things while maintaining a distinction between God, the Ground of Being, and the material universe.

This ontological distinction is, perhaps, the only difference between what you appear to be saying and the variety if theism I'm talking about.

I am sure that what you are saying is maintained with some clarity for some theists. I think the temptation is great for humans, however, to objectify and try to manipulate just about everything. What I seem to be seeing in the world, is that many, many, MANY (maybe even most) theists DO objectify and speak for their "god", and identify what their god is and is not, creating separations between their god and whatever "otherness" they prefer to imagine. And this is what I was speaking to: "It does not make sense to me that there would be any entity that would be SEPARATE from all that is." And as I've tried to explain to Hobbes, that doesn't mean I think there is ANY entity at all! I'm just thinking of energy... without any sort of focused or directional intent or thinking... NOTHING by human standards, for sure (which is what makes it hard to describe). We are like a flickering blip of passing possibility... in a vast expanse of connectedness... that's all. If we find meaning in a rock or a star or something we imagine... it's just of meaning to us in the moment we assign it meaning. It does not need to be more... and I don't think it is more than that. Superimposing our human limitations/understandings (and "gods") onto all-that-is, is like superimposing the characteristics of what we know of a pebble onto a vast universe of stars and planets and unknown energies. We can only guess, and find meaning for ourselves.

Lacewing wrote:

Hobbes' Choice wrote:

Lacewing wrote: It does not make sense to me that there would be any entity that would be SEPARATE from all that is. I think "separation" is a human concept. We humans seem oblivious to the connectivity of ALL -- and oblivious to the scope that is beyond the limitations of our perception of forms and boundaries. Therefore, within the boundaries of our own limits, we create gods who are identified as having human characteristics and being separate. It's all WE know.

I take it, you either own this, or are now calling yourself an Atheist?

The issue here is that you are misunderstanding it -- NOT that I have something I'm not owning.

Theists have defined a god entity... yes? And they (commonly) have defined all kinds of separations associated with that god, yes? According to theists, some things are of their god, and some things are not... correct? THAT doesn't make sense to me... when they say that their god created (and is) ALL of it. That doesn't mean that I believe "all that is" IS A GOD. I do NOT! Rather, I think that "all that is" is WAY BEYOND the puny human notion of gods.

Make up your mind. Either you believe in god or you do not. Which is it?

Hobbes' Choice wrote: Make up your mind. Either you believe in god or you do not. Which is it?

You answer this first: Do you get rapturously off on wasting other people's energy on questions you're incapable of discussing yourself, or are you such a lonely and desperate swamp creature that you will slobber happily over anyone's interaction with you? Which is it?

Lacewing wrote: You answer this first: Do you get rapturously off on wasting other people's energy on questions you're incapable of discussing yourself, or are you such a lonely and desperate swamp creature that you will slobber happily over anyone's interaction with you? Which is it?

Yes, Hobbes, make up your mind. Are you a time waster or a swamp creature, it's decision time. I would say you are both but it's not my decision.

I think we should change this poll to...

Hobbes: Waste of energy or Swamp Creature?

[ ] Rapturously gets off on wasting other people's energy on questions he is incapable of discussing himself.

[ ] Lonely and desperate swamp creature that will slobber happily over anyone's interaction with him.

[ ] Both of the above.

Lacewing wrote: I am sure that what you are saying is maintained with some clarity for some theists. I think the temptation is great for humans, however, to objectify and try to manipulate just about everything.

No disagreement from me.

What I seem to be seeing in the world, is that many, many, MANY (maybe even most) theists DO objectify and speak for their "god", and identify what their god is and is not, creating separations between their god and whatever "otherness" they prefer to imagine.

And this is what I was speaking to: "It does not make sense to me that there would be any entity that would be SEPARATE from all that is."

Still no disagreement.

And as I've tried to explain to Hobbes, that doesn't mean I think there is ANY entity at all! I'm just thinking of energy... without any sort of focused or directional intent or thinking... NOTHING by human standards, for sure (which is what makes it hard to describe). We are like a flickering blip of passing possibility... in a vast expanse of connectedness... that's all. If we find meaning in a rock or a star or something we imagine... it's just of meaning to us in the moment we assign it meaning. It does not need to be more... and I don't think it is more than that. Superimposing our human limitations/understandings (and "gods") onto all-that-is, is like superimposing the characteristics of what we know of a pebble onto a vast universe of stars and planets and unknown energies. We can only guess, and find meaning for ourselves.

Absolutely. Still, it is not uncommon to hear some theists say "God does not exist." It sounds paradoxical, but what they mean is that God is not a being like the tooth fairy or some other parody used by critics to describe God.

Thomas Aquinas was careful to make a distinction between allegorical and univocal modes of communication. That was hundreds of years ago, so except out of ignorance, there is no excuse for an anti-theist's failure to take the different modes of speech into account. It is no excuse to say that because many theists are ignorant they, too, should be ignorant.

When theists (of the ilk I'm talking about) ascribe personality to the energy you're talking about, the language being used is allegorical, not univocal. There is no one-to-one correspondence between human personality and God. The word, in fact, is used in a radically non-anthropomorphic way. They might mean, for instance, that God is personality; a transpersonal Unity, a Unity that transcends yet includes finite personalities and is the source thereof.

Lacewing wrote:I think we should change this poll to...

Hobbes: Waste of energy or Swamp Creature?

[ ] Rapturously gets off on wasting other people's energy on questions he is incapable of discussing himself.

[ ] Lonely and desperate swamp creature that will slobber happily over anyone's interaction with him.

[X] Both of the above.

The Inglorious One wrote: It is not uncommon for some theists to say "God does not exist." It sounds paradoxical, but what they mean is that God is not a being like the tooth fairy or some other parody used by critics to describe God.

I would really enjoy hearing some theists say this. I guess I've been surrounded by other types of theists. And still, of the theists I personally know who objectify their idea of a god, they are very good and intelligent people. I just don't want them preaching (what appears to be madness) to me.

I agree that people cannot be definitively categorized in ways that equate to being ignorant -- although we might do it to make a point. Individuals can behave so differently within the same circumstances and belief systems.

The Inglorious One wrote: When theists (of the ilk I'm talking about) ascribe personality to the energy you're talking about, the language being used is allegorical, not univocal. There is no one-to-one correspondence between human personality and God. The word, in fact, is used in a radically non-anthropomorphic way. They might mean, for instance, that God is a transpersonal Unity, a Unity that transcends yet includes finite personalities and is the source thereof.

Yes, I have used the word "god" at times to try to describe certain concepts. Unfortunately, the word/idea is so mangled and infected that it's hard to communicate around all of that.

Personally, I would sit with any peaceful group of spiritual people... and truly enjoy the sweetness and connectedness of their spirits. I don't care what they believe. I don't think it matters. It only matters to me what they do with it.

Thank you for sharing an alternative view of some theists. It's encouraging to consider/remember that this exists too.

Lacewing wrote:Yes, I have used the word "god" at times to try to describe certain concepts. Unfortunately, the word/idea is so mangled and infected that it's hard to communicate around all of that.

I've never had any difficulty whatsoever in understanding your transparently Spinozan world-view, Lacewing, because in many ways it's indistinguishable from my own, and Indeed Albert Einstein's. However once we define the universe as everything that exists and then adopt this as an a priori position we move well away from the concept of gods as they are generally understood in the common usage. Philosophy is all about conveying meaning and the conveying of meaning depends on precision of language. When most people refer to god or gods they refer to beings which exist external to the physical universe and are assumed responsible for events which occur within it. This was not Baruch Spinoza's god and neither was it Einstein's Yahweh.

Inglorious may harrumph as much as he likes in his Hegelian indignation and deny that this fictitious and infantile uber-god is his intended meaning when he pontificates on his "ground of all being", his undefined mysticism and his god which somehow exists outside the standard definition familiar to the rest of us. When we decide to define our words according to our own taste we deserve everything that's coming to us when our readers ridicule our words. Once a word has been written down and posted in these pages it passes out of the ownership of the writer and becomes the exclusive property of the reader and when we say god we must expect that people will equate this word with their own understanding of the term and not with whatever construction of conceptual taste we might prefer to apply to it.

Either the universe is everything that exists or it isn't. If we accept that it is then we have no need of belief and that's all there is to it. All of physical reality is accessible to our understanding. If we don't accept that it is then we have no need of philosophy or science because we have immediately defined reality as unknowable.

Take your pick.

Lacewing wrote: I would really enjoy hearing some theists say this. I guess I've been surrounded by other types of theists.

In my experience, it's most prevalent amongst Catholics. (My wife is Catholic and I will occasionally go to church with her.) David Bentley Hart gives a pretty good account of why atheists generally attack the wrong God in his book The Experience of God. One review describes it as "The one theology book all atheists really should read." Here's an excerpt:

Some people really do believe in this version of God: supporters of 'intelligent design', for example – for whom Hart reserves plenty of scorn – and other contemporary Christian and Muslim fundamentalists, too. But throughout the history of monotheism, Hart insists, a very different version of God has prevailed. In a post at The Week, Damon Linker sums up this second version better than I can:

… according to the classical metaphysical traditions of both the East and West, God is the unconditioned cause of reality – of absolutely everything that is – from the beginning to the end of time. Understood in this way, one can’t even say that God "exists" in the sense that my car or Mount Everest or electrons exist. God is what grounds the existence of every contingent thing, making it possible, sustaining it through time, unifying it, giving it actuality. God is the condition of the possibility of anything existing at all.

God, in short, isn't one very impressive thing among many things that might or might not exist; "not just some especially resplendent object among all the objects illuminated by the light of being," as Hart puts it. Rather, God is "the light of being itself", the answer to the question of why there's existence to begin with. In other words, that wisecrack about how atheists merely believe in one less god than theists do, though it makes a funny line in a Tim Minchin song, is just a category error. Monotheism's God isn't like one of the Greek gods, except that he happens to have no god friends. It's an utterly different kind of concept.

Lacewing wrote:Yes, I have used the word "god" at times to try to describe certain concepts. Unfortunately, the word/idea is so mangled and infected that it's hard to communicate around all of that.

The review goes on to say:

But too often, instead of being grappled with, this argument gets dismissed as irrelevant. Sure, critics argue, it might be intriguing, but only a handful of smartypants intellectual religious people take it seriously. The vast majority of ordinary folk believe in the other sort of God.

As Hart points out, there are two problems with this dismissal. First, you'd actually need to prove the point with survey data about what people believe. But second, even if you could show that most believers believe in a superhero God, would that mean it's the only kind with which atheists need engage? If a committed creationist wrote a book called The Evolution Delusion, but only attacked the general public's understanding of evolution, we'd naturally dismiss them as disingenuous. We'd demand, instead, that they seek out what the best and most acclaimed minds in the field had concluded about evolution, then try dismantling that.

Hart is just one among several authors I can point to, but none of them are going to convince a hard-nosed skeptic to take a closer look at what they're criticizing. And that's a shame.

P.S.
It would be exceedingly easy to pick apart what Leo had to say, but he belongs on the option-list with Hobbes, so what's the point in doing so?

The Inglorious One wrote: It would be exceedingly easy to pick apart what Leo had to say

Since you've never made any attempt to do anything of the kind we'll simply take this statement on faith, shall we? You've never answered a single question which I've put to you and I've done my best to keep the number of polysyllabic words I use down to a manageable minimum for your exclusive benefit.

Is your new "Thinking Man's God" a conscious entity?

Obvious Leo wrote: ...once we define the universe as everything that exists and then adopt this as an a priori position we move well away from the concept of gods as they are generally understood in the common usage.

Yes. Although, even using the word "universe" challenges me, because it, too, has certain ideas and limits associated with it. Many of us think of it as the physical stars and planets that stretch beyond our view into space. But there seems to be MORE that is not often seen, nor easily measurable, that passes between and through all of us... and weaves and links people and events in astonishing ways.

Obvious Leo wrote:When most people refer to god or gods they refer to beings which exist external to the physical universe and are assumed responsible for events which occur within it.

I think it's the easiest explanation for human beings... even though it makes no sense.

Obvious Leo wrote:Either the universe is everything that exists or it isn't. If we accept that it is then we have no need of belief and that's all there is to it.

I'm inclined to agree with this -- while at the same time, I feel aware that humans seem inclined to do this experience in all kinds of intoxicated ways, which may involve being steeped in beliefs. And I'm not sure that matters, because I'm not sure that we're supposed to do this experience in any particular way. The frustration of it is that so many people push their wares with inconsistent and deceptive messages of which they themselves are not even aware! So it all seems rather mad.

Obvious Leo wrote:All of physical reality is accessible to our understanding.

I suppose so. It's the non-physical -- in the range of the spectrum that we don't see -- that I don't want to deny, even though I cannot define it. And I don't want to try too vigorously to define it because I think I would only limit it by placing current physical definitions on it. (That's why definitions of a physical god sound so ridiculous to me.) How can we possibly describe that which is beyond our range of perception for the most part, because we only get flickers of it? To forge it into something manmade, is to bring it down and limit it to a human level of density.

Obvious Leo wrote:If we don't accept that it is then we have no need of philosophy or science because we have immediately defined reality as unknowable.

Well, I suppose I am guilty of this in the sense that I think we're making all of this up somehow... and that we don't "know" anything really, except what we make up. BUT... I treasure it. And I think there's value, even if fleeting... and even if only for the experience. And I've been finding a new kind of freedom and joy from NOT NEEDING TO KNOW. Just being. Dancing with all of it. Making stuff up, while knowing it's made up, is great fun. It takes the pressure off. Seeing how things work and flow... and playing the game, is an exhilarating challenge. Learning to love more and more because there are no conditions that must be met, is joyful beyond words. And riding the invisible dragon of one's energy and power, brings a whole new dimension to everything, and seems to open up new worlds to explore.

And no, there is no god standing separately with expectations, demands, nor being displeased. And it's wonderful!

Obvious Leo wrote: Is your new "Thinking Man's God" a conscious entity?

Seriously? After all what was said you have the audacity to ask whether God is some kind of superman? Lacewing is right: "there is no god standing separately with expectations, demands, nor being displeased."

Either: (A) You rapturously gets off on wasting other people's energy on questions you are incapable of intelligently discussing or investigating yourself; or (B), you are a lonely and desperate swamp creature that will slobber happily over anyone's interaction with you.

The Inglorious One wrote: Here's an excerpt:

… according to the classical metaphysical traditions of both the East and West, God is the unconditioned cause of reality – of absolutely everything that is – from the beginning to the end of time. Understood in this way, one can’t even say that God "exists" in the sense that my car or Mount Everest or electrons exist. God is what grounds the existence of every contingent thing, making it possible, sustaining it through time, unifying it, giving it actuality. God is the condition of the possibility of anything existing at all.

For me, the concept of "from the beginning to the end of time" sounds manmade. The rest of the description is interesting. Although I still have a sense that the idea of "god" is being given a role and actions. The last part makes the most sense to me: "God is the condition...". We wouldn't worship a "condition" would we? We might appreciate it... we might try to utilize it well... but we wouldn't personify it.

Monotheism's God isn't like one of the Greek gods, except that he happens to have no god friends. It's an utterly different kind of concept.

The "he" blows that idea for me. But in general, it seems to me, that we simply cannot truthfully reduce such unknowable vastness and potential down to human characteristics, without completely distorting the entire idea and turning it into something else. And the fact that we even try to seems grossly foolish and deceptive. I support other people's experience to make up whatever they want, and whatever gives them peace or helps them to live a valuable life. For myself, however, any god concept that involves separateness or supremacy is false.